Thursday, March 27, 2008
Abby Mann
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Abby Mann, writer of socially conscious scripts for movies and television and winner of the 1961 Academy Award for adapted screenplay for "Judgment at Nuremberg," died Tuesday. He was 80.
Writers Guild of America spokesman Gregg Mitchell confirmed the death. The cause of death was not given.
Mann also won multiple Emmys, including one in 1973 for "The Marcus-Nelson Murders," which created a maverick New York police detective named Theo Kojak. The film, starring Telly Salavas, was spun off into the long-running TV series "Kojak."
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Wally Phillips
CHICAGO (AP) _ Wally Phillips, the most listened-to Chicago radio host for two decades, died Thursday. He was 82.
The longtime broadcaster, whose skillful blend of information and humor made him a pioneer of talk radio, died after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, according to WGN, where he spent 42 years.
Phillips dominated Chicago's radio airwaves after taking over WGN's morning show in 1965.
Mixing audience participation, public service and breaking news, his broadcast was the No. 1 morning show in Chicago from 1966 until he left to take over the afternoon program in 1986, according to WGN.
At the height of his popularity, he had an audience of nearly 1.5 million _ about half the listeners in the Chicago area.
Phillips returned to the air in 1999 to host a two-hour weekly talk show on WAIT-AM, a station in suburban Chicago.
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Harvey Picker
CAMDEN, Maine (AP) _ Harvey Picker, a pioneering physicist, inventor and businessman who went on to a second career in higher education before focusing on the promotion of patient-centered health care, died Saturday at his home. He was 92.
The death was confirmed by a statement on the Web site of the Picker Institute, a global nonprofit organization he co-founded. A cause of death was not immediately available.
Picker, son of the founder of Picker X-Ray Co., led the family business into such fields as cobalt therapy for cancer, nuclear imaging diagnostics and use of ultrasound for oceanography, which was then adapted for medical imaging.
Picker began his academic career by teaching political science at Colgate University, his alma mater. He then served for more than a decade as dean of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
An avid sailor, Picker in 1982 moved to Maine, where he bought Wayfarer Marine, one of the largest boatyards on the East Coast. Four years later, he and his wife Jean founded the Boston-based Picker Institute, which is dedicated to advancing the principles of patient-centered care as seen "though the patient's eyes."
The institute, which is credited with having coined the phrase "patient-centered care," also pioneered patient-satisfaction surveys to improve the delivery of medical services.
Jean Picker, who served as an ambassador to the United Nations during the 1960s and was an active collaborator in her husband's many interests, died in 1990.
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